Research Coordination Network – RCN

The Research Coordination Network (RCN) encompasses Indigenous researchers in local communities across the Arctic. These researchers work in a variety of contexts, including collaborative research with visiting scientists focusing on their own traditional livelihoods and activities, community-based research and monitoring programs, and projects of all sizes and types that employ both Indigenous knowledge as well as Western scientific methods. The network’s approach emphasizes the interest and need for Indigenous researchers to meet in their homelands and design their own research networking activities. The overall goal of RCN is to create a sense of community among researchers who, up until now, have not had an opportunity to interact in person. As the first of its kind in the Arctic, the RCN has the potential to foster new research ideas/priorities, understanding, collaborations, international partnerships and exchanges of knowledge across Arctic communities and scientific disciplines. Forming such a network will give recognition to the importance of the work that researchers are already doing and the ways that they are doing it. What’s more, it will help forge a support system as they continue with their pursuits.

The work is done in collaboration with the University of Colorado Boulder